world overpopulation

Subsequent to Dick Smith's complaints to the ABC about bias towards the growth lobby on the subject of population, on 11 September 2017, Paul Barry, of ABC Media Watch, launched what many thought was a personal attack on Smith, in lieu of dealing fairly with the vital issues at hand. Dr John Coulter (former Senator and leader of the Democrats) wrote the following complaint to Media Watch, where he protests at the treatment of Dick Smith by Media Watch and documents a number of instances of pro-population-growth bias in the ABC. You can also read some a few comments published by Media Watch on this issue here: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4732374.htm.

Dear Media Watch,
[11 September 2017]

I was quite shocked by your program last evening re coverage of Dick Smith’s attempts to get ‘growth’ both population and economic on to the ABC’s agenda. Unlike your usual, more dispassionate reports you seemed to be more intent on disparaging Dick Smith rather than dealing with the importance of his claims as to the overarching importance of both aspects of growth as the drivers of our unsustainable trajectory and the fact, yes fact, that the ABC has excluded these things from its main-stream news items.

I wrote to you about this back in March and received an acknowledgement but nothing more. Below is some of the content of that letter.

But to bring this right up to date, just this morning there was extensive coverage of the problems with the supply of electricity into the mid-term future. But not a single mention of the fact that Federal Government policy is to add an additional one million people, all needing electricity every five years into the indefinite future.

Is this really an irrelevant ‘fact’? Is it not an important ‘fact’ to bring into this discussion? In every other sphere of public discussion both supply and demand are considered the basic elements of economics 101. Yet in the provision of electricity services, affordable housing, education, hospitals and medical services, roads and transport, etc etc the demand side caused by deliberate population growth through immigration is excluded by the ABC.

On the economic growth side the ABC repeatedly provides data on the growth of GDP but with few exceptions fails to provide the figures on per capita GDP growth which is much much smaller because of the very high level of immigration. Nor does it mention that included in the GDP figures are large amounts spent on attempts to keep infrastructure up to providing for the expanding population. None of these costs, which are added to GDP, improve the lot of existing Australians. It’s not surprising that very many Australians feel they are going backwards – because they are. Or that the Productivity Commission found only marginal economic benefits from immigration and much of that benefit going to the recently arrived.

None of this is to indicate racism. This is purely to do with numbers and how best to build an environmentally sustainable Australia in an environmentally sustainable world. Note that the Global Footprint Network has recently released its figures which show that Australians have the highest per capita environmental impact in the world. We would need 5.2 Earths if all were to live like Australians. Yet all our political parties seek to increase both population and per capita consumption. And the ABC uses language in its coverage of these things as, for example, South Australia ‘falling behind.

These footprint figures link Australians to the rest of the world and how best we can assist other nations to find their own unique path to a sustainable future. With 80+ million refugees and displaced persons in the world and with fertility rates in many middle-east and sub-Saharan Africa very high it seems self-evident that Australia could do much more by way of foreign aid, especially slanting that aid toward family planning, contraception and raising the standard of health of women. Yet Australia has cut its foreign aid program and the ABC has not picked up on the central role of foreign aid to assist women in the ways mentioned. Indeed a number of programs from Sally Sara and others have ignored the central role of high fertility in worsening the plight of people from Yemen to South Sudan. I am associated with an organisation called Population Media Centre which operates in over 50 countries and which concentrates specifically on raising the health of women. It uses long running radio soapies to raise awareness. I have several times urged programs such as Foreign Correspondent and Sally Sara specifically to make a program about the exciting and successful work of PMC in Ethiopia for example, but to no avail.

Below is some or all of the letter I wrote to you back in March:

9th March [2017] letter to media watch.

For example, last week in Saturday Extra a long interview regarding the plight of refugees in Sudan failed to even mention population growth as a driver of this and similar distressing situations across much of the world, especially the middle east and throughout Africa. Population growth is clearly going to make the present look like a picnic compared with the inevitable future. By not dealing with population and implying that the real need is for short-term aid rather than family planning, contraception availability, education and a rise in the standard of living and equality of women, such programs will make the future worse than it needs to be. In short, such programs will increase the totality of human suffering.

See the 2 minute video from the UN on the plight across the Sahel at http://oasisinitiative.berkeley.edu/news/ [Embedded below.]

This item on Saturday Extra was not isolated. A week earlier on a different program a similar account from another refugee camp in Africa failed to mention population growth as a factor.
12th November 2016, "What keeps me at wake at night."

This program on water began with the statement that water was a limited resource but that demand was increasing. It identified the limits on water supply as underpinning several of the areas in turmoil in the middle east, especially Syria. It touched on the appalling conditions in Yemen, specifically dealing with declining water per capita but again failed to mention the very high fertility rate in Yemen or any of the other middle east countries which appear on the nightly ABC TV news showing very large numbers of children but with never a comment on the size of the population or the fact that the high fertility rate will exacerbate the water shortage per capita. It is not a water shortage but a longage of people. This is the point that the ABC repeatedly misses. The standard analysis by ABC journalists as to what ails many of the middle-east countries is presented in political and religious conflict terms; never does it point to the underlying drivers: too many people trying to derive resources, including water and food, from a finite environment.

Last evening (27th March) on Lateline Jeremy Fernandez interviewed HRH Haya Bint al Hussein of Jordan who is in Australia in her role as assisting international refugees and speaking with Australia's Foreign Minister. Princess Haya made the remarkable claim that the world produces three times as much food as needed. This went unchallenged. She was not asked a single question about the very high fertility rates in middle eastern countries and how this was impacting (what is usually called the shortage of food and water but is really) the longage of people. Note that almost every news item that covers the middle eastern refugee situation speaks of families of 4, 6 and 8 children and every video clip shows a preponderance of children. There is no shortage of evidence. She was not asked a single question on family planning or use of contraception.

This morning (28th March) Fran Kelly also interviewed the princess and again there was a complete absence of any questions about the very high fertility rates in Middle east countries, what her charities might be doing about this, about Trump's change to foreign aid specifically with respect to family planning clinics providing abortion advice or services and whether she would be asking the Australian Foreign Minister for additional foreign aid to counter this deficit. Women's standing in Jordan was touched on but only with respect to the number of women in significant positions in government and society.

28th March ABC RN Drive with Patricia Karvelas.
Interview with three interviewees on housing affordability. First comment by first interviewee was that it was a matter of both supply and demand and there was a gap. Karvelas did not pick up on the demand side throughout the interview. She identified ‘the elephant in the room’ as negative gearing but failed to identify that 60% of demand is being fed by high immigration and that many have identified this as a very significant factor in housing affordability. The first interviewer mentioned immigration in his closing remarks but no one picked up on this remark of this factor.

24th March. Stan Grant interviewed Dick Smith in a setting of a Sydney market on the evening Link program on ABC TV.
This part of the program was said to be about population and Australia’s immigration intake. However the context set by Stan Grant was that the size of a sustainable population can be determined by public opinion and Stan kept asking leading questions of those in the market suggesting that any reduction in immigration would be detrimental to their business. Stan could not be more wrong in his assumption. Finding a sustainable population size for Australia is no more a matter of public opinion than finding the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that can be allowed without invoking climate change, or the number of sheep that can be kept permanently in a paddock without overgrazing. These are all matters in which there is good and essential science underpinning consideration of these matters but Stan consistently talked over Dick and did not allow him to advance any of them.
31st March. The Drum. A segment on population that contained no person or mention of environmental sustainability in relation to population growth. Thus, claims that we need population growth, that it was inevitable, that growth was wonderful, that it benefited the economy, that government could do nothing to limit population growth, that Japan was shrinking and we don’t want to go down that path were all left to stand as truth whereas every single on of these claims can be refuted with supported evidence. The selection of such a panel without an alternative voice shows bias.

6th , 7th , 10th April. Three sessions on RN on almost successive days dealing with aspects of housing affordability but none mentioning population growth or immigration.

6th April. Interview with respect to the role of transport development as a way of alleviating the problem of housing affordability (Marion Tell). This was based around a talk by Phillip Lowe, Reserve Bank Governor. Lowe had mentioned population as a driver of housing unaffordability but this was not taken up by Fran Kelly. Together with the other programs not mentioning population growth and immigration this seems a quite deliberate omission.

7th April. Interview with MP, Sarah Henderson who claimed that improving rail links to regional centres would improve housing affordability. No questions asked about population growth or immigration intake.

10th April. Interview with Saul Eslake about use of superannuation as a way of boosting housing supply but again no mention of population growth of the size of the immigration intake.

17th April. Patricia Karvelas interviewing Matt Canavan. Long interview on a number of matters but touching on housing affordability. Canavan mentions population increase and how it is causing problems in Sydney and Melbourne but then provides a solution in opening up more regional centres especially in north Queensland. Patricia does not suggest that perhaps the problem might be the increase in population caused largely by high immigration over which the Federal Government has control.

Finally a search across the ABC from September 2016 to today (19th April, 2017) failed to find a single ABC reference to population increase/ immigration and housing affordability. Indeed there is not a single reference to any impact on any aspect of infrastructure failure and the increase in population being driven by very high immigration.

Kindly and patriotic Australian businessman, Dick Smith, has been very poorly treated by the ABC on episode 158 its The Drum program. This is a very serious problem because, in mistreating Dick Smith, the ABC misinforms Australians on a subject of vital and democratic importance. The ABC seems now undifferentiated from the commercial TV channels with regard to reporting on population. Apparently the ABC has actually banned Dick Smith from the program. The letter inside, from Dick Smith to Ms Julia Baird, the Presenter of The Drum, asks for right of reply. We have embedded Dick Smith's video ad at the beginning of the text so you can judge for yourself whether Ms Baird has a leg to stand on. To us it is obvious that what has caused the media to go after Dick Smith is the fact that he has linked growthist population policy to Australia's reigning politicians and they are going to try to destroy him.

Dick Smith Fair Go 'Grim Reaper' TV Ad - 1min from Dick Smith Fair Go on Vimeo.

7 September 2017

Julia Baird Presenter The Drum ABC

Dear Julia

RE: CONTINUING BIAS ON THE ABC

What an outrageous segment on The Drum last night misrepresenting my views on population growth and immigration. This segment did everything to confirm that Mark O’Connor’s chapter in his book Overloading Australia entitled ‘Media bias and ABC blues’ is correct.

Your researchers didn’t even make the most basic enquiries by lifting the phone and talking to me about the statements that were attributed to me.

I note you started the segment with a piece from another TV channel with the large text “Anti immigration ad.” In fact, I have never had an anti-immigration ad.

I spent $1 million on a “Grim Reaper” style advertising campaign explaining that when politicians say growth, they actually mean endless growth. This will either result in growing inequality, or possibly terrible consequences for our society.

Those views are not mine alone, but reflect the views of many educated people from around the world.

The reason I have never run and anti-immigration ad is that I am pro-immigration. I always have been. It is the reason Australia is such a fantastic country.

Yes, upon advice from experts, I believe we should return to the long-term average of about 70,000 per year – as I’m told this will mean there is a greater chance for a sustainable future, and proper full-time careers for our children and grandchildren.

70,000 per year is approximately the immigration number when Paul Keating was Prime Minister, and I’m told is high per capita by world standards.

I have consistently called for a substantial increase in the humanitarian intake. This would be clear if any of your researchers had even bothered to glance at the Fair Go manifesto, or if you had given the panelists the document to look at.

Your segment went downhill from there. The erroneous caption “anti-immigration ad” confirmed exactly what I had been told by politicians about the ABC. They have said to me:

“Dick, you are absolutely right. We need a population policy, but if I ever mentioned it I would be crucified by the ABC. They would immediately link my comment to being opposed to immigration…”

Not at any time during the whole segment did you actually discuss what I am on about. That is, it is not possible to have endless growth in a finite world.

Amazingly, your researchers or producers didn’t even bother to brief Alan Kirkland, the CEO of Choice, about my $1 million “Grim Reaper” television campaign. He actually said on your segment:

“I didn’t know about this campaign until the whole story broke about the ABC banning him.”

Once again, that proves exactly what Mark O’Connor is saying in Overloading Australia. That is, ABC television news and current affairs (and, I will add, The Drum), constantly show bias on the growth issue.

Every one of your panelists were clearly pro endless growth. I particularly loved the comment by Alan Kirkland:

“So we are getting a lot out of migration at the moment, geared predominantly towards delivering what employers need, and that is what fuels the economy, and it has been one of the most consistent forces driving economic growth in Australia, decade upon decade.”

Of course he doesn’t mention for an instant – nor do you, and I would have thought you would have as you are a mother of young children – that with automation and robotics there are real concerns that there will be enough jobs to give a decent full-time career to our young people in the future.

That is why, in my Fair Go manifesto, I have canvassed the idea of a living wage – not at all mentioned by any of your people.

Then of course there is the tired old point from Alan Kirkland:

“We absolutely need to have this debate because I guess the missing piece is saying that population has grown that that has fuelled economic growth but we have really dropped the ball on infrastructure and on housing in particular.”

Yes, that is the Harry Triguboff belief. You just need to spend more money on infrastructure and housing, and the endless growth will be solved.

Has Mr Kirkland forgotten that our high schools are now moving into high rise, and children are living like termites rather than free range with a back yard and a cubby house?

Georgina Downer from the Institute of Public Affairs, reckons, “It is quite rich for Dick Smith to say he is being ignored,” and then goes on saying that I pitched my whole argument about immigration “being incredibly damaging” when this is clearly not true.

Julia, why didn’t you bring up at any stage the issue that I am talking about? It is very simple. You can’t have endless growth in population and the use of resources and energy in a finite world. There is no discussion on this because the politicians have been totally intimidated because they may be branded “anti-immigration.”

It appears that the briefing note handed to panellists said that this was a “stunt.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Since producing my documentary on population, which was run on the ABC, I have worked constantly on this important issue that affects all Australians.

Of note, the documentary was commissioned not by television news and current affairs, but by a completely different ABC department, and the man who did the commissioning did not have his contract renewed.

Julia, you, like every mother, has a population plan – you didn’t have 20 kids. Australian families are sensible and have the number of children to whom they can give a good life. Why then shouldn’t we have a plan for the aggregate that says, “Let’s have the number of people in Australia that we can give a good life to.”

I would say that is pretty simple, but it is not discussed in any way – driven by the fear of politicians into being dishonestly distorted in their views, as your segment did to me last night.

Most importantly, I note the statement by marketing strategist Toby Ralph:

“I am very concerned that he is a guy who won’t vote for a Party that he is about to give $2 million to, and that seems to me a contradiction that you can’t fully move past. I think he needs a nice long lie down and a think about that.”

One simple phone call by your researchers to me would have informed them that I have never had any intention of making a donation to One Nation in relation to this issue. It is a complete fabrication.

I have attached a copy of the chapter in Overloading Australia entitled Media bias and ABC blues. I ask you to read it, and today at 4.30 pm I will be at the ABC Headquarters at Ultimo, waiting downstairs, and I expect to be given a chance to go on air to have the truth told.

I should point out that eight out of ten Australians agree with my views that we should have open discussion and a population plan – not endless growth, driven normally by endless greed.

Regards

Dick Smith

Appendix: Descriptiion of The Drum episode 158

Tonight on The Drum: Julia Baird is joined by marketing strategist Toby Ralph, CEO of CHOICE Alan Kirkland, Georgina Downer from the Institute of Public Affairs and Fairfax national affairs editor Mark Kenny. #TheDrum,

World population Day was established by the UN in 1989 to highlight concerns as the planet’s population went past 5 billion. It is now at 7.4 billion and rising by about 80 million every year, so the problems are even more intractable (despite the rate of growth declining). Medium scenarios produced by the UN estimate the world population could be between 9 and 10 billion by 2050.

It may surprise some that Australia has one of the highest population growth rates in the developed world. We are adding about 325,000 people a year, with about 55 per cent from net overseas migration and 45 per cent from natural increase at the present time, although it has stood at a 60/40 ratio for a number of years.

Population is a notoriously difficult subject to discuss in public forums, partly due to the complexity of the subject and partly due to the political and emotional nature of the issues. These issues can go to the core of people’s philosophies and values and include notions of freedom and human rights, compassion, religion, progress, ecology, and economic imperatives.

In Australia, people often get confused between sometimes competing issues like refugees and asylum seekers, racism, border protection, defence, economic migration, colonial guilt, and sustainability. These tensions are not unique to Australia, as we can see from debates in Europe and the US in recent times.

What the European, American and indeed Australian problems show is that sovereign states should not consider themselves immune from population pressures in other parts of the world as desperate people will have little regard for borders or dangerous sea crossings.

To that extent, not-for-profits like Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) are continually lobbying governments to increase foreign aid to the developing world to help it gain control over unwanted and harmful population increase. Unwanted population growth can largely be curtailed through a mixture of education, the provision of modern contraception, safe emergency abortion, and the alleviation of poverty – although some people like to argue about which is more important.
Regardless, the empowerment of women is vital.

So purely from a selfish point of view it is in Australia’s interests to maintain a reasonable level of foreign aid, in concert with the rest of the developed world, and targeted to voluntary family planning programs that we know can be successful. Unfortunately Australia’s foreign-aid budget has been shrinking lately in a retrograde and myopic fashion.

But leaving the more obvious global problem to one side, Australia is long overdue for an open debate on the benefits and burdens of domestic population growth and where these benefits and burdens fall.

A recent survey commissioned by SPA found that most Australians did not think we needed more people; and a survey by SBS in May found that 59% of people thought that the level of immigration over the last 10 years had been too high*.

Proponents of a ‘big Australia’ are mostly business barons and their hirelings: the wealthy gain the most from population growth and can largely insulate themselves from its negative effects like sky-rocketing real-estate prices, long commutes to work and infrastructure shortfalls.

Meanwhile, the average person, but especially the young and the poor, suffers the most – from unaffordable housing, general congestion, and competition for access to education and health services.

More unseen problems tend to harm everybody: these include biodiversity loss, increased greenhouse gases and climate change, the reduction in fresh-water availability, and the steady increase in all kinds of pollution.

While unpopular among elites, especially economists, there needs to be a conversation about the direction our society is going. The privileging and mindless pursuit of GDP growth might not be the best option on a finite planet where limits to growth seem obvious to all those not blinded by dogma. Rather, the pursuit and monitoring of such things as general wellbeing and happiness might be a more rational strategy, especially if that means a more equal sharing of what wealth can be generated in an ecologically sustainable fashion.

If we adopt the latter planned approach, we might well find that a stable rather than an ever-growing population is more sensible. The alternative may well be an unplanned population correction that no one would find enjoyable.

*[http://tapri.org.au/?page_id=2 ]

This article forms the basis of a brochure, attached for download and printing, prepared by Roland Johnson for the Victorian and Tasmanian Branch of Sustainable Population Australia.

‘The modern plague of over population is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is …universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and the education of the billions of people who are its victims’. [1]
Photo: Martin Luther King, 1966 (revered symbol of human rights)

But powerful forces have opposed population control and the world’s population has more than doubled since 1966 to seven billion, with three billion desperately poor. Migration to rich countries is not a solution. Watch Roy Beck’s YouTube video , ‘World Poverty, Immigration and Gumballs’, to see why.

In the screenshot below, one gumball equals one million people; the tall jars represent the three billion poor. The wine glass holds five years’ migrant intake at one million a year (the current intake of the United States). Even if Australia took one million people a year (nearly four times our current intake) the numbers of the poor would continue to grow at around the rate of 80 million each year. [2] Besides, Australia’s immigrants are more middle class than poor.

Poor people desperately need help where they are, including with family planning. We must stabilise our numbers, both nationally and globally. Currently the world is finding it difficult to feed all of the seven billion already here. [4] It won’t get easier if the global population grows to 9.75 billion or more by 2050. [5]

AUSTRALIA

From 2007-13 Australia’s net migration averaged over 230,000 p.a. which, added to an average annual natural increase of 157,000 p.a, meant growth of 387,000 p.a. and an annual growth rate of 1.8 per cent. [6] This is among the highest in the world. [7] It is destroying Australia’s ability to help the world’s poor and this growth will take us from 24 to 64 million in 2100. [8] It must stop some time.

WHY NOT NOW?

A sustainable Australian population

Australia’s total fertility rate (TFR) is around 1.9 per woman, [9] technically below replacement— 2.1. But the population is still youthful. So we would keep growing due to natural increase until 2046, leveling off at 26 million. A policy to stabilise our population closer to 26 million rather than 64 million is needed.

The growth lobby of big business, developers and media moguls is forcing Australia’s growth to be among the fastest in the world. Our total increase of 387,000 a year is more than the population of Canberra (381,488 in 2013). [11] This growth is against the wishes of 70 per cent of voters. [12] Our 1.8 per cent p.a. exceeds Canada’s high 1.2 per cent & NZ’s 0.8 per cent. [13]

The Immigration Department is overloaded

Immigration Department files reveal “…enforcement capacity has collapsed…nine in ten skilled migrant visas may be fraudulent …[investigation into] a Somali people - smuggling cell linked to a terror suspect … ceased due to a lack of resources’. [14]

Two thirds of new arrivals are on some kind of working visas, which are issued by licensed agents subject to rorting and bribes. Many visa holders, through a well understood system of visa churning, eventually gain permanent residency. [15]

Immigration policy can be changed. Around 80,000 people leave Australia permanently each year. This means that we could have a refugee intake of 20,000 p.a., plus other special cases, and achieve nil, or at least very low, net migration.

Economic Costs

Dr Jane O’Sullivan’s submission to the Productivity Commission, re ‘Public Infrastructure Report’ shows that each new person added to the Australian population costs taxpayers over $100,000 in infrastructure. [16]

“[P]opulation growth and ageing will affect labour supply, economic output, infrastructure requirements and government budgets… Total private and public investment requirements over this 50 year period [to 2060] are estimated to be more than 5 times the cumulative investment made over the last half century…”

[17] Building the equivalent of a new Canberra every year is not cheap.

The Federal Government is dominated by the growth lobby and State governments compete for the prestige of a higher population. They promote immigration and advertise for immigrants. They rezone prime agricultural land for housing. Local governments then increase rates, which forces the famers off the land. Local councils also convert pleasant suburban streets to high-rise ghettos to collect more rates. The costs of the extra services are paid for by existing tax- and rate-payers.

Choking Cities

‘Population growth is great for business but governments can’t keep up. Roads are clogged and public transport is groaning. The health and education systems can’t cope with demand’. [18]

Employment

With many new workers and the loss of our manufacturing capacity, we are already unable to employ many of our young.

‘Between 2011 and 2014 the number of jobs increased by 400,000 but new migrants took 380,000. Some 240,000 more young Australians entered working age compared with those who retired, but they had to compete for only 20,000 extra jobs’. [20]

Agriculture

Australia looks big on the map but it’s an old, dry, infertile continent. Sprawling cities are taking some of our best land—land high on the two factors of good soil and reliable rainfall. (These are the areas shaded dark green on the map.) Much of Australia is marginal agricultural land (shaded yellow), and the greater part is unsuitable for any agriculture (shaded red).

Australia might be able to feed a domestic population of 60 million for a while, but this would leave us without food for export to pay for imports. A sustainable population must stay below 30 million; over that we start to sink to third-world standards.

Climate Change

Climate change will badly affect Australia’s agriculture with reduced irrigation in the Murray-Darling Basin and marginal land becoming arid. The so-called inexhaustible Great Artesian Basin is now declining. The idea of Australia as the food bowl of Asia is a myth!

Minerals

Iron ore reserves were once thought to be almost inexhaustible. But all of the high grade, easily accessed mineral deposits in Australia have been mined out and energy consumption in mining has increased by 450 per cent in the last 40 years. [21] We are one of the world’s largest exporters of LNG, but this leaves little for the local market. [22] In order to find more, pressure for fracking access to coal-seam gas builds up. This risks polluting underground water and increasing food insecurity.

THE GROWTH LOBBY

While all Australians pay the cost of population growth, big business profits from it. Their self interest in growth is understandable. But it is unconscionable that politicians, most journalists and many academics support them. (See ‘How the Growth Lobby Threatens Australia’s Future’, James Sinnamon.) [23]

The growth lobby finds ways to silence its critics. In the USA the prestigious Sierra Club was given $100 million on the understanding that it would not continue to oppose the one million p.a. migrating to America. [24]

The slur of racism by the growth lobby has stifled the population debate.

BUT

Martin Luther King understood the cost of growth. Was he a racist?

‘I don't think slowing the rate of growth is blaming immigration or ethnic communities’
(Voula Messimeri, Chairwoman of the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia). [25]

Immigrants also suffer the effects of population growth. Poor migrants suffer the most.

The lobby promotes the fear of an ageing population

But the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that ‘Even large difference in the level of net immigration will have a relatively small impact on the age distribution’. [26]

Natural increase is still strong so our population would not decline without net migration. Immigration makes us bigger, not younger. Besides the aged contribute to society in many ways—ways worth billions of dollars. [27]

What about humanitarianism?

Australia’s policies serve the growth lobby, not the greater good. There is no virtue in luring away the best and brightest from poor nations. Australia poaches doctors and nurses from developing nations to service the huge rise in our population. We take about 1000 doctors and 2800 nurses a year. How many more come on temporary or 457 visas?

Most of Australia’s migrants come for economic reasons; this is no way to help the world’s poor. We should accept refuges and provide desperate women of the third world—who procreate even when their children are starving—with the means of family planning.

THE ENVIRONMENT

‘Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it’s time we control the population to allow the survival of the environment’. [28]

Sir David Attenbourough (celebrated conservationist)

The World Wildlife Fund reported in 2014 that the world wildlife population had been halved between 1970 and 2010. The human population doubled in the same peroiod contributing directly to 82 per cent of the loss of wild life. [29]

We are already destroying the environment by overstocking our poor soils, habitat destruction and deforestation all of which causes soil loss and salination. We are doing this in 2015 to support nearly 24 million people. What would we do to support 64 million?

GLOBAL WARMING

Global warming is our greatest immediate threat and as Figure 3 shows, Greenhouse gases increase with the world’s population.

And Australia’s per capita emissions are the highest in the OECD. [31]

Our responsibility to other people, those now living and those yet to be born, and our responsibility to other species, all mean that Australia must curb its runaway population growth. The world must slow down and stabilise too.

Prepared by Roland Johnson for Sustainable Population Australia Vic/Tas.
www.population.org.au

This material is available in pdf form for downloading and printing here: Population Flyer cropped.pdf

References

[1] tp://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Overpopulationaccessed 18 January 2015
[2] Roy Beck, World Poverty, Immigration and Gumballs The Population Reference Bureau’s annual World population data sheet shows a world population of 7.238 billion in mid 2014 and 1.137 billion in mid 2013, an estimated increase of 101 million people, 98 million of this increase in less developed countries. See www.prb.org
[3] Roy Beck, op. cit.
[4] Paddy Manning, ‘“Global” risks on food security mean us too’, The Age, 3 December 2011, p. 16
[5] The United Nations’ projections for 2050 include 9.746 billion (medium), 16.218 (medium high) and 24.834 billion (high).tp://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange/longrangeExecSum.pdfaccessed 18 January 2015
[6] Data on growth calculated from the ABS, Demographic Statistics, Catalogue no. 3101.0 various issues. The average NOM for 2007 to 2013 was 237,000 pa and the average annual growth rate was 1.81 per cent
[7] See World Bank http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW accessed 18 January 2015
[8] Projection series 20, published online with, Australian Bureau of Statistics (2013), Population Projections, Australia, 2012 (Base) to 2101, Catalogue no. 3222.0.
[9] The average total fertility rate from 2008-09 to 2013-14 was 1.9085. Calculated from ABS, Demographic Statistics, Catalogue no. 3101.0, June 2014, p. 39.
[10] See ibid.
[11] ABS, Demographic Statistics, July 2014, Catalogue no. 3101.0, p. 26
[12] Katharine Betts (2010), ‘A bigger Australia: opinions for and against’, People and Place 18(2), pp. 25-38
[13] World Bank data bank
[14] Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker, ‘Terror touches down’, The Age, 7 August 2014, pp. 1, 4.
[15] See Dr. R Birrell, Sydney Morning Herald online , 7 August 2014.

[16] Jane O’Sullivan (2014), ‘Submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into Infrastructure provision and funding in Australia’, p. 3 http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/135517/subdr156-infrastructure.pdf
[17] Productivity Commission (2013). An Ageing Australia: Preparing for the Future — Overview. Melbourne, Productivity Commission, p. 2
[18] Alan Kohler, ‘Healthcare and infrastructure spend tearing budget apart’, The Australian, 6 May 2014, p. 30
[19] Source: Department of Infrastructure and Transport, Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport, Road vehicle-kilometres travelled: estimated from state and territory fuel sales, Report 124, Canberra, Department of Infrastructure and Transport, 2011, pp. 372-3
[20] Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy (2014), Immigration and Unemployment in 2014,/em>. Monash University, Melbourne, Centre for Population and Urban Research
[21] Simon Michaux (2014) ‘The coming radical change in mining practice’ in Jenny Goldie and Katharine Betts (Eds) Sustainable Futures: Linking population, resources and the environment, CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Victoria, pp. 75-76
[22] See ‘Reform needed to minimise LNG export impact on manufacturers: report’, ,em>Gas Today, 24 July 2014 http://gastoday.com.au/news/reform_needed_to_minimise_lng_export_impact_on_manufacturers_report/088251/ accessed 25 November 2014
James Sinnamon, "How the growth lobby threatens Australia's future."

Kenneth R. Weiss, ‘The man behind the land’, Los Angeles Times 27 October 2004
Quoted in Mark O'Connor and William Lines (2008), Overloading Australia: How governments and media dither and deny on population, Envirobooks, Sydney, p. 145
ABS (2000), Projections of the Populations of Australia, States and Territories: 1999-2101, Catalogue no. 3222.0, p. 2
For more on the benefits (and costs) of demographic ageing see Katharine Betts (2014), The ageing of the Australian population: triumph or disaster?, Centre for Population and Urban Research, Monash University
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Attenborough accessed 25 November 14
Living Planet Report 2014 accessed 25 November 2014
Population data are from United Nations Department of economic and social affairs http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Excel-Data/population.htm ; Carbon emissions data are from Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre (CDIAC)
The Garnaut Climate Change Review, Chapter 7, ‘Australia’s emissions in a global context’ 2008, updated in 2011 http://www.garnautreview.org.au/chp7.htm

Dr Valerie Yule describes how our economic system removes our ability to choose what we really want and need.

The Great Dilemmas

A major reason why we do nothing to stop our experiment in destroying the planet is that reining in our wasteful life styles would cost jobs and profits.

Stephen Emmett, an Oxford professor of Computational Science and head of the Microsoft Computational Science laboratory in Cambridge is the star of Ten Billion, a theatrical work which shows our planet's environmental tragedies with ‘compelling impeccable logic.’ He thinks we are ‘already fucked’ as humanity's experiment with the planet destroys ecosystems, eradicates other species, pumps more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, temperature rises, swelling populations, rising middle-class aspirations, and spoils the ocean, air, water and soils. (Account in Guardian Weekly, by Robin McKie, ‘Climate change is big drama’, 17 August p 21)

Humans vs nature

Humanity is now using nature’s products 52 percent faster than what Earth can renew, according to Global Footprint Network’s latest data, published in the 2012 edition of the Living Planet Report.

And we do nothing.

A major reason why we do nothing is that reining in our wasteful life styles would cost jobs and profits. These would be especially in travel, production of really-not-needed goods, and retail.

Every one of us – including me - has some habits that could be changed to save resources and greenhouse emissions. Let us look at what would happen to a typical single-person household, if recent advances in waste were to be cut. (They are recent. Our grandparents were not so wasteful.)

Food – Eat less, especially processed foods, and be less obese – although this will cut jobs and businesses.

We heat our homes more than needed with central heating and cool them more than needed with air conditioners. That is because we have open-style housing and cannot shut the doors to where we are. We do not dress according to the weather. We could sit with an electric rug over our knees rather than heat the room.

Yet, change our ways and we cut jobs and businesses.

Our homes are designed to be ever more wasteful. Perfectly good houses are pulled down to build McMansions with no eaves, no gardens or yards, dark roofs and enormous rooms not all really needed.

Bathrooms at several per house, with square handbasins and baths with claw feet, with no regard for cleaning and waste of water. People wash their hair daily, and usually themselves, whether they need a shower or not.

Yet, change our ways and cut jobs and businesses.

We use appliances not only when needed, but when we really could do with ‘household exercise’ with carpet-sweepers, manual lawn mowers, and twin tub washing machines. Then we drive to the gym to get exercise.

Yet, change our ways and we cut jobs and businesses.

We wear the latest fashions and throw out rather than re-use the old.

Yet, change our ways and we cut jobs and businesses.

Travel on holidays and business include too many trips by plane. We go to our many conferences by plane, even when video-conferencing and email give us communication we did not have yesterday.

Yet, change our ways and we cut jobs and businesses.

Commuting to jobs and shops is usually by one-tonne family-size vehicles, although many households have two cars. One of those cars could surely be a compact two-seater, that would save fuel, energy in the making, and cut traffic snarls in half. This would open a new field for car manufacturers.

In the laundry: Our appliances are made for big households for children and workers with lots of dirty clothes. We have these big appliances using excess water and energy for small households, with most of the washing being only to refresh most clothes. Yet people change their clothes whether they need to or not. They use hot water and too much detergent. They get new washing machines regularly.

Yet, change our ways and cut jobs and businesses.

Retail stores benefit particularly from selling big appliances that need replacing soon. We do not have updated electrics for the old carcasses.

Yet change our ways and we cut jobs and businesses.

We use electric dryers – often because there is no room for outside dryers. We iron. Today’s fabrics rarely need ironing – even pillowslips and hankies go smooth if folded and put away.

Yet, change our ways and cut jobs and businesses.

Furnishings are not mendable or renovatable. We could have mendable furniture and washable stretch coverings. Instead Council hard rubbish pictures show goods that have minimum defects as examples of what to throw out to the tip. Microsoft Spellchecker does not even recognize the words mendable or renovatable.

Yet, change our ways and we cut jobs and businesses.

Schools are large and centralized, so that whereas two generations ago most children traveled to school on foot or bicycle, now parents add to the traffic and costs by ferrying them. Small schools are better for small people, and can share online materials and specialist teaching. They would increase useful jobs – but to sell their land aids developers.

Families: Parents are still described as ‘generous’ if they have large families, whereas today to have a small family oneself and care abut other people’s children is true generosity. Most of the children that come into care were unwanted in the first place.Why encourage people to have children they do not want and cannot care for?

Pets: Do people consider that pets that eat meat, are over-large, and are too many. put another burden on the earth’s resources? Working dogs of course are another matter. Many people need cats to keep down vermin, but let them out at night to catch our wildlife birds and small creatures.

Yet change our ways and we cut jobs and businesses.

Our lifestyles have also become more wasteful with children’s toys, garden prunings, plastic bags, quickly obsolete electronic gear, waste of paper, re-using rather than recycling. Look around your home.

We need to go back to our grandparents’ saving ways and many of their appliances.

We need also to go forward – in sewage, for example, with separation of liquid sewage for local use as fertilizers and solids for centralized production of equally useful sludge. What a saving of water!

New jobs and new businesses could employ thousands, and people-care is still under-serviced.

The poor of the world look to live our life-styles. The planet staggers as they try. Our life-styles can be full of pleasure, and healthy too, in giving more chance for the earth to survive.

Valerie yule

About Dr Valerie Yule, M.A., Ph.D, Dip.Ed., M.B.Ps.S. Academic positions at Melbourne, Monash and Aberdeen Universities in departments of Psychology and Education; Teacher at all levels, from preschool to adult and migrant literacy and PhD supervision; Clinical child psychologist at the Royal Children’s Hospitals, Melbourne and Aberdeen; Schools psychologist chiefly but not only in disadvantaged schools, Present research on imagination and literacy.

Population analyst, Brian McGavin, writes about the silent crisis in our midst, of overpopulation. "Today there is a ‘Silent Crisis’ in our midst. The crisis, still largely unrecognised, is potentially greater than all the other problems that transfix our policy makers. For many decades now there has been a willful blindness in recognising that relentless human population growth is one of the pre-eminent problems we face. Rather than providing solutions and leadership, "More and more developed countries offering new ‘baby bonuses’ make it even less likely that we will achieve the lower figures being quoted in the media."

The Silent Crisis

Today there is a ‘Silent Crisis’ in our midst. The crisis, still largely unrecognised, is potentially greater than all the other problems that transfix our policy makers.

For many decades now there has been a willful blindness in recognising that relentless human population growth is one of the pre-eminent problems we face. A problem that is driving the astonishing growth of fossil fuel use and its depletion, climate warming, bio-diversity loss, the growing shortage of fresh water to meet human needs - and as a consequence of these changes - the prospect that agriculture will be unable to produce enough food to feed us.

Nothing to celebrate

In 1950 world population was barely over two billion. As we pass seven billion at the end of October, it is nothing to celebrate.

In most countries today existing populations are not living environmentally sustainably, yet even if the UN’s assumptions of birth-rate decline in developing countries happens, global population will rise to 9.3 billion by 2050. Less reported is that if current birth rates persist, the United Nations Population Division warned in March 2009 that our population will exceed 11 billion in just 40 years.

More and more developed countries offering new ‘baby bonuses’ make it even less likely that we will achieve the lower figures being quoted in the media.

We have to start thinking about a ‘genuinely sustainable’ rather than ‘endless growth’ economy – an economy that is already faltering around us. Politicians focus on reviving economic growth and stimulating spending, but in an era of rapidly depleting resources, the ‘business as usual’ economy will need to be radically rethought to keep our complex society functioning, with a transition to a dynamic, self-supporting economy that satisfies our needs.

Growth Lobby

The growth lobby is pushing two great myths: That our ageing populationwill be a disaster unless we have higher birth rates and, despite rising unemployment, there is a terrible shortage of labour that only high immigration can supply. Both claims have been repeatedly shown to be either false or grossly exaggerated. They have huge long-term costs on our infrastructure and environment. Young people get old too and have higher dependency costs. Politicians don’t emphasise this.

In Africa, the UN now admits that it won’t meet its Millennium Development Goals but fails to explain the underlying causes for pessimism. Many countries in Africa already have massive unemployment and not enough food. How will they provide all the schools, jobs, hospitals and food to sustain populations that are set to more than double and in some cases triple in size in the next 40 years?

Governments will be struggling with millions of unemployed and hungry people attracted to violence and extremism. Look at the problems already in our news in countries like Haiti, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan – all countries on constant food aid, with exploding populations and increasingly scarce resources – yet population growth is never mentioned!

In Australia, mainly arid and with a water crisis, the population is set to double every 33 years, fuelled mainly by high immigration. America, Canada and the UK’s already high environmental impact is also increasing due to demographic pressures.

Saving the planet and greenwash

Most environmental organisations tell us that ‘if only we each reduced our environmental demand, population growth would not be a problem’. But our economic system, predicated on growth, is driving us in the opposite direction. Even if all the efficiency and renewable alternatives could be implemented the savings would be quickly wasted if populations continue to grow.

You can try reducing consumption all you want, but when you keep adding 100 million and another 100 million, you simply drive every human to a lower and lower standard of living. You cannot escape that reality.

Most experts now agree we will pass ‘peak oil’ production in 2012 and production of all liquid fossil fuels will drop within 20 years to half what it is today. Yet, forecasts project energy demand will grow by 60 per cent between 2002 and 2030. (Sources: (US) Energy Information Administration and chief executive, BP oil).

A huge problem is most alternative energy sources are poor energy performers because they need a high-energy input to provide a given energy return. Wind and solar power are intermittent, while Hydrogen is only as clean as the fuel source used to produce it and provides only a quarter the energy as the same volume of gasoline. Ethanol, from corn or sugarcane, contains 33 per cent less energy than the same amount of oil and competes with food production. Already, 18 per cent of U.S. corn now goes to producing ethanol, but provides only one per cent of the liquid fuel used in the U.S.

Charles Hall, professor of Environmental Science at the State University of New York, warns that apart from bicycles, there are virtually no functioning forms of transportation that are not powered by oil. Most products are made with petroleum and most jobs would cease to exist without it. Renewables (other than hydropower or wood) currently provide less than one per cent of the energy used in the world, but the annual increase in the use of most fossil fuels is far greater than the total electricity production from wind turbines and photovoltaics.

Governments now plan to spend billions by substantially increasing nuclear generation. Apart from potentially critical contamination risks, even doubling the number of reactors across the world could see commercially extractable uranium ore run out in just 20 years.

According to some energy analysts, the energy commitment required in mining, waste storage and disposal will shortly make the nuclear industry a net user of energy, just when the energy famine begins to hit hard. Unless there is an unlikely breakthrough with fusion power and we drastically cut demand, we are on course to exhaust the energy we need in the lifetime of many people alive today.

Professor John Beddington, UK Chief Scientist, warned in March 2009 that: “Our food reserves are at a 50-year low, but by 2030 we need to be producing 50% more food, we will need 50% more energy, and 30% more fresh water. They are dramatic problems, and they are all intimately connected”

Water

The Stockholm International Water Institute calculated in 2008 that 1.4 billion people live in regions where existing water cannot meet the agricultural, industrial, municipal, and environmental needs of all and only 2.5 per cent of the world’s water is fresh. Today, one person in five across the world has no access to safe drinking water, and one in three lacks safe sanitation.

Around 19% of US energy demand goes into food production. Fossil fuels to meet this demand are declining and many regions are already reaching the limits of their water resources, according to the UN’s World Water Development Report in 2009.
And then there is the impact of climate change. The accelerating icecap melt will make at least a metre rise in sea level probable by 2100 - threatening the world's major cities and fertile crop-growing deltas. Freshwater glaciers that feed major rivers used for irrigation are shrinking.

If governments won’t talk population, then they are not serious about cutting emissions, managing the water supply, managing food supplies, and a secure quality of life for our people. We can secure a way to genuine sustainability and a fairer use of resources, but we have to recognise the problem and act quickly.

It is not a question of ‘either or’ and who needs to act. We are in this together. Rich nations are consuming too much and populations continue to rise. Legitimate aspirations to raise living standards in high population countries like China and India are consuming ever-more resources. In many developing countries with acute water and food shortages, populations are projected to double or triple in size within 40 years – driving social unrest and migration on a massive scale.

There are several key challenges we have to talk about and face. In particular, ensuring development aid from donor countries delivers fully accessible and properly funded reproductive health care for all, along with equal access to education for girls and women. In many countries there are still barriers to this. We also have to start incentivising welfare systems to encourage fewer births rather than more.

Moral values?

Some people believe they have a right to have as many children as they want, whether they can look after them or not and fail to understand or just ignore the consequences of human population growth. Many commentators wilfully promote an ever-larger population in the name of freedom of choice. There will be precious little choice left if we go on multiplying with no thought for the future.

Others claim their religion as an excuse for actions that impact on others: Have large families "in the name of God"; Over-consuming resources? "God will provide” - so we don't need to think about the ecological consequences; and when the day of reckoning and collapse arrives - "It is God's will" - a religious opt-out from moral responsibility.

We have superior intellect to understand the consequences of our actions and the ecological and social devastation that will run like a scourge of misery for billions if population keeps increasing. Do we plan for a secure and better life or do we carry on blindly toward a minefield of lethal limits?

Rights come with responsibilities. Governments ‘incentivise’ many aspects of our lives for a common good, but the more crowded we become the more governments will police our behaviour and restrict our activities. We still have a choice. The world badly needs a grown-up, rational discussion of the population issue - without blame, abuse and hysteria.

It would be a tragedy if population growth became a catastrophe - a catastrophe we were too polite to talk about. Our children will not thank us for being driven to an abyss.

Originally submitted as, "The Silent Crisis,"
by Brian McGavin, writer and analyst, dated September 2011.